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"Your humble servant," he replied, "is Chung K'uei, Physician of Tung-nan Shan in Shensi. Overwhelmed with shame, I committed suicide on the steps of the imperial palace. At these words the Emperor awoke and found that the fever had left him. The work was so well done that the Emperor recognized it as the actual demon he had seen in his sleep, and rewarded the artist with a hundred taels of gold.
It is especially to be noted that though the two K'ueis have the same sound they are represented by different characters, and that the two constellations are not the same, but are situated in widely different parts of the heavens. How then did it come about that scholars worshipped the K'uei in the Great Bear as the abode of the God of Literature?
The Ministry of Exorcism is a Taoist invention and is composed of seven chief ministers, whose duty is to expel evil spirits from dwellings and generally to counteract the annoyances of infernal demons. The two gods usually referred to in the popular legends are P'an Kuan and Chung K'uei.
In modern Taoism T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu is regarded as the first of the Patriarchs and one of the most powerful genii of the sect. His master was Hung-chün Lao-tsu. He wore a red robe embroidered with white cranes, and rode a k'uei niu, a monster resembling a buffalo, with one long horn like a unicorn. His palace, the Pi Yu Kung, was situated on Mount Tzu Chih Yai.
It seems certain that the art of casting iron and the beginnings of the production of steel were already known at this time. The life of the commoners in these cities was regulated by laws; the first codes are mentioned in 536 B.C. By the end of the fourth century B.C. a large body of criminal law existed, supposedly collected by Li K'uei, which became the foundation of all later Chinese law.
The term K'uei was more generally applied to the four stars forming the body or square part of the Dipper, the three forming the tail or handle being called Shao or Piao. How all this came about is another story. A scholar, as famous for his literary skill as his facial deformities, had been admitted as first academician at the metropolitan examinations.
The two sons-in-law of the King, Ho Fêng and Chao K'uei, who had already made secret preparations to succeed to the throne as soon as the King should breathe his last, learned with no little surprise that the priest had hopes of curing the King's illness, and that he was waiting in the palace until the saving remedy was brought to him.
Their cosmogonical connexion has already been referred to in a previous chapter. Image of K'uei Hsing In front of Wên Ch'ang, on his left, stands K'uei Hsing.
The term P'an Kuan is, however, more generally used as the designation of an officer or civil or military attendant upon a god than of any special individual, and the original P'an Kuan, 'the Decider of Life in Hades, has been gradually supplanted in popular favour by Chung K'uei, 'the Protector against Evil Spirits. The Exorcism of 'Emptiness and Devastation'
The place of the latter in the heavens above is invariably symbolized by the lodgment of his idol in an upper storey or tower, known as the K'uei Hsing Ko or K'uei Hsing Lou. Here students worship the patron of their profession with incense and prayers.
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